Inside Alice
by A New Scribbler
Summary: My first fanfic. What did Alice see/feel as she watched Bella jump from the cliff into the churning water below? New Moon - Alice's POV. Reviews are welcome as I know they'll encourage me to keep going.
1. Not Her Time

Disclaimer: Alas, I do not own these characters. I can only wish for an imagination as extraordinary as Stephenie Meyer's.

One minute I was tearing across the tundra with Jasper beside me and Emmett and Rosalie keeping pace beside us. We were chasing after Emmett's favorite dining pleasure, grizzly. The next second I was stopped dead in my tracks, my face frozen in fear.

"God, Bella, no," I cried, my head shaking back and forth in disbelief.

"Alice?" Jasper wrapped his hands around my shaking shoulders, the concern etched into his perfect face. "What do you see?"

I couldn't answer him. I was too busy staring at the scene I was witnessing in my mind, the love of my brother's existence leaping to her certain death. Her body poised to jump off of a cliff into the churning waters of an ocean starting to come alive with an impending storm.

"Bella, no! Don't do this!" But my cries were futile. She was over 1,000 miles away and all I could do was watch with horror and disbelief as her feet left the edge of the cliff and her body started falling through the air.

"Swim, Bella, swim!" I screamed as she hit the water. By now Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie were surrounding me. I could hear them saying my name, asking for answers, but all I could focus on was her.

"No, it's not supposed to end like this," I sank to my knees, sobbing tearless cries.

"Alice," Jasper knelt beside me, taking my face in his hands. "Tell me, what did you see?"

I clutched at the love of my life. "Bella…."

"What happened to Bella," Jasper asked slowly, almost cautiously as if he was scared I was about to shatter like glass.

"She…she jumped." My voice sounded small, pure shock resonating with every word.

"Jumped, what do you mean jumped?"

"She jumped, off a cliff, into the water. Oh god, Jasper, I didn't see her come back up. I don't think she surfaced," my hysteria was starting to bubble over. I looked at Jasper in appreciation as I started to feel a sense of calm wash over me. His ability to manipulate the emotions of those around him helps in a crisis situation.

"Is she…" Jasper couldn't finish the sentence.

"Is she dead?" Rosalie asked.

"Yes." I whispered. "Yes, I think she is."


	2. Picking Up the Pieces

"Well, that means that Edward can come home now," Rosalie said callously.

A slow warning hiss emanated from me.

Emmett stepped between us. "Rose, this isn't the best time for that."

"I'm sorry, but we haven't seen our brother in months. We've hardly spoken to him and now he can come home. Who is going to tell him?" Rosalie looked at each of us.

"We can't just call Edward up and give him the news, Rosalie. Think about what this will do to him." I was grateful for Jasper's calm logic.

"We have to go back," I said quietly, almost to myself. "If we leave now we can be back in Forks by tonight."

Everyone stopped their bickering and stared at me. Rosalie's eyes were wide with angry disbelief, Emmett looked back and forth between the two of us and Jasper just looked at me with swelling concern.

"Alice, we promised Edward we wouldn't interfere," Jasper reminded me as he twined his arms around me. He held me back from him to look into my eyes, "Remember the promise we made to Edward."

I glared at him incredulously, "You can't be serious! I'm fairly certain that Bella jumping to her death changes the rules here Jasper. Think about Charlie and what this is going to do to him. Especially since he has no idea how it came to this!" I shuddered at the thought. "Someone has to be there to comfort Charlie."

"Look, I'm heading back to Forks right now, regardless of whether or not any of you are coming with me." I looked at each of them.

Rosalie just shrugged and shook her head.

"Sorry Alice, I just don't think there's anything we can do at this point." Emmett's voice was quiet with sadness.

"Fine, Jasper?" I turned to my other half.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

I nodded once and took off running. Someone had to be there to pick up the pieces.

**A/N: Please, please review! I'm new to fanfic.**


	3. Explanation

**A/N: This isn't the most exciting chapter as it's more of a segue to Italy, but as the trip to save Edward is coming soon, hang in there with me**. **The characters all belong to Stephenie Meyer as does anything appearing in italics.**

It was strange walking into our home now empty and lonely. I couldn't help but play through the memories in my head. Forks was the closest place to a permanent home I'd ever had and we'd left it behind…mistakenly in my opinion.

I walked into the garage and climbed into Carlisle's black Mercedes. The engine purred as I peeled out of the garage.

"Oh Edward, if you'd only chosen to stay," I thought to myself knowing that he'd stopped listening to my mind months back when he realized that I hadn't stopped loving Bella either. It was just too hard for him to hear my memories and thoughts of her on top of his own. And now...we'd lost her. And we've probably lost Edward also. I grimaced at the pain that accompanied that unwelcome thought.

He was barely surviving his self-imposed isolation from Bella. I had no idea how we'd tell him she was gone forever. Or what he would do when we did. I forced the scenarios that started buzzing in my head into the back corner of my mind. It was too much to think about, the impact Bella's death would have on Edward. I had to focus on Charlie right now and on giving him the best resolution I could, even if I had no idea what that would be yet.

I couldn't exactly tell him, "Charlie, your daughter died from a broken heart and soul brought on by the pure-intended, but clearly misguided attempts of my vampire brother and family to keep Bella safe from the mythical monsters that you don't know actually exist." It was going to be a long night.

I drove down the familiar rain-slicked roads to the modest home that Bella and Charlie had shared and parked the car against the curb in front. I knew Charlie wouldn't be home for a couple of hours, so I let myself in silently and prepared to wait. I found myself treading into Bella's bedroom. The sadness was almost overwhelming as her smell filled my senses. Her room looked different from the last time I had seen it. It was perfectly neat, almost obsessively so. There was nothing indicating that this was the room of a human teenage girl. It almost looked as though the room was standing in wait for someone who hadn't been home in quite some time. This was not the bedroom I remembered.

"What happened to you, Bella?" I wondered out loud.

I heard tires squeal on the street and slowly walked down the stairs. I hadn't turned on the lights as they had been off when I arrived. Sucking in a deep breath, I steadied myself, preparing to comfort a father broken by the loss of his daughter.

But it wasn't Charlie's scent that greeted me as the door opened. It was sweeter, and feminine and…Bella, but how? I wrinkled my nose…Bella mixed with something noxious.

The lights turned on and I heard a gasp come from the girl standing at the foot of the stairs. Then I felt her warm body hurtle into mine as her tears streaked down my shirt.

"Alice," she cried. "It's really you!"

I held her sobbing body as close to my cold frame as I dared. I'd forgotten how powerful her scent was, and I had stupidly not hunted before leaving Denali. Bella was clinging to me with all of the strength in her fragile human body. It felt like she was trying to climb inside of me, seeking comfort away from the pain that had clearly been consuming her, terrified that she would blink and I would disappear.

Leading her to the couch I got my first good look at her. She looked…broken. Her skin looked ashen, her cheeks sunken and her eyes were shadowed in deep purple, as if she hadn't slept peacefully in months. But it went deeper than her appearance. Looking into her eyes, it seemed like this was the first time she'd opened them in quite some time.

"How?" I asked simply as Bella sniffled.

_Bella swallowed loudly. "You saw me fall,"_

"_No, I saw you jump." _I looked at her poignantly_._

I heard Bella sigh.

"What were you thinking? Do you have any idea what your death would do to Charlie, to Edward?" I struggled to keep my voice under control.

"_Alice, I wasn't committing suicide,"_ Bella said softly.

I raised one eyebrow in doubt. "Explain."

Bella nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment as I waited. Then she launched into the story of her life over the past several months. I stared in astonishment as she nervously told me that her new best friend was a young werewolf, rolling my eyes at her clear disregard for the danger the uncontrolled temper of a werewolf put her in. And it was apparently this werewolf who had pulled her out of the water. That explained the hideous smell coming off of her, but not why I failed to see him do it.

How could I not have seen Jacob Black pull a still breathing Bella from the current? It didn't make sense that my vision ended with her body sinking. My eyebrows furrowed in frustration.

By the time she got to telling me about Laurent and Victoria I could only shake my head in utter disbelief. _"Edward was a fool to think you could ever survive alone. I've never seen someone so prone to life-threatening idiocy," I told her. _

Bella took a deep, calming breath. My eyes instinctively skipped to the pulse beating frantically in her neck. I needed to hunt.

Getting Bella to let me go, even for an hour was no simple task. She finally untangled her fingers from my shirt with my promise that I'd return in one hour. I needed to find out the full extent of the disaster our abrupt departure had created. I needed to talk to Charlie.


End file.
